My dog has caught many hens without killing them. I give them a nice toss and they fly away. If one does not make it, it becomes coyote food. Its survival of the fittest; if a bird is going to sit there that long for a dog, a coyote would have gotten it sooner or later.

Use Excel and label your headings, similar to those used by riverrat in the post above. Using the Sort - Filter, you will then be able to filter by species, lake, wind direction... etc. It will allow for quick, easy referencing once you have a large enough database.

Dave - Here a couple tips from a guy who has played hockey since he was four (am 24 now) and has had both used and new skates: Skates are very different from shoes and need some time to fit a person's foot correctly. There is nothing worse than skating in ill-fitting skates. They have gel which fits around the ankles of the wearer and this must be broken it to fit. Used skates will fit the previous wearer but may not fit your son. To size hockey skates correctly, have your boy slide his foot all the way forward. You should be able to slide your pointer and middle finger between the back of the skate and his heel. This will give him room to grow but will not be too big to allow discomfort. To break in hockey skates: Bring a large pot of water to a boil and hold the skates over the top of it for 3 to 5 minutes. The heat and water will soften the gel in the ankles. WITH SKATE GUARDS ON, sinch the skates around your boy's foot as tight as possible, with comfort. Let him wear the skates around the house for about 30 minutes to an hour. Repeat this a few days and it will greatly reduce the break in time during skating, thus making it much more enjoyable. CCM is my personal favorite for hockey skates.

I would be shooting a Skeet choke if one were available for my new gun. I opt for the improved cylinder instead. If you are going to a game farm, I would most definitely use the improved cylinder as those birds tend to flush rather close.

Quote:Haha, I love when people say this. If you kill a pheasant, how can it not affect the population? What if you kill 50? And so does your neighbor? Again I say... one rooster will breed over 10 hens. Even if you kill a majority of the roosters in the area, the ones that do survive will breed the hens. Don't shoot 50 hens and you should be fine.

I don't believe anyone ever said it was ok to crowd in on someone. In general, responsible hunters will analyze each situation to ensure they are not infrining upon someone elses hunt. Each situation is remarkably different so having a hard, fast rule is impossible. Different groups can coexist on a relatively small piece public land as long as each group is considerate of the other. Quote:How about 20 acres? Will you still get out of your truck and crowd the other hunter? Why?? This is not about "its public hunting and I can do it if I want", its about having a quality hunt, so enlighten me as to why you would crowd other hunters. I would not. I would not hunt on 120 acres if I did not believe there was enough good cover to allow it. Everything is situational.

80% of people are done hunting. Snow, cold and ice fishing will eliminate quite a few more. One rooster will breed over 10 hens. If there are too many birds for the food source, the more aggressive roosters will exhaust the food source, thus killing the hens. As hunters, we need to assist in keeping the rooster to hen ratio in check. One last point... one hard winter will kill an awful lot of pheasants as will removing thousands of acres from CRP. Lets hunt them while the numbers are high.

Generally the birds will be concentrated on slough edges, changes in cover, etc... Figure out where the first guy is hunting and go hunt a different transition area. He doesn't lay claim to the ENTIRE piece of land because he got there first. If I go hunt a 400 acre piece of WMA and get there first, should everyone else drive by? Great! I will get there at 7:00am and sleep in my car for two hours because all 400 acres are mine as long as my truck is there. As you can see, I mention nothing about cutting a person off or trying to infringe on his/her hunt. I am simply stating you can hunt a different portion of the WPA or WMA. It also depends on the number of hunters in the truck. 1 guy on 80 acres is much different than a group of 4.